LET'S TALK ABOUT - FREE UTILITIES SYSTEM MAINTENANCE

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LET'S TALK ABOUT - FREE UTILITIES SYSTEM MAINTENANCE

When you use a computer every day, you get a feel for its abilities, rhythms, and idiosyncrasies. So it always comes as a bit of a surprise when—after months or years of use—the device that previously zipped along like a puppy on speed seems to have slowed, now a geriatric hound no longer interested in chasing the ball.
  
It's also possible your old hardware simply isn't up to snuff when the time comes to running the latest software. The occasional full reinstallation of the OS might fix the issue, but there's a reason people upgrade things like RAM, hard drives, and entire computers every few years: new software gets better and better partly because it's written to work with the latest and greatest components.

SOME RECOMMENDATIONS:

GLARY UTILITIES http://www.glarysoft.com/glary-utilities/
The free version of Glary Utilities (the Pro edition is $19.97) offers "one-click maintenance of a PC. You pick all the functions you want to run, click once, and the utility does the work. You have to run it manually, only the Pro edition works in the background. The utility works great, just beware when you install it on Windows, the check boxes will try to get you to install a toolbar that will take over the search on your browser. Also available version for Android Phones.




CCLEANER https://www.piriform.com/ccleaner
Piriform has cornered the market somewhat on incredibly well-crafted utilities that anyone can use for free, and the cornerstone of its offerings is CCleaner. The latest version 5.22 (it updates regularly) tackles cleanup of so much stuff on a PC: The Windows registry; all the crud left behind by browsers like IE, Firefox, Chrome, Opera, and Safari; and of course the detritus of Windows both purposeful (the Recycle Bin) or not (temp files and log files and more). Also available version for Android Phones.

Everything is logged so you can analyze it before deleting, if desired, but CCleaner is well regarded for seldom steering customers wrong. Piriform guarantees CCleaner as 100 percent free of spyware and adware—not something you see from every vendor. You can upgrade to a Pro version for $25, which throws in automatic updates and real-time monitoring for all user accounts at once, if inclined.




SLIMWARE UTILITIES SLIMCLEANER https://www.slimwareutilities.com/slimcleaner.php
How it differs is in aggregating the collective data of many, many SlimWare customers, so it has a much better idea of what to delete, what to keep, and how to optimize a Windows PC for the best performance. In our review, analyst Jeffrey Wilson called SlimCleaner "a mashup of social network and utility that does a fine job of cleaning gunked-up PCs."

On top of those socially powered improvements, SlimCleaner also includes a duplicate file finder, a disk defrag, a disk analyzer so you get a visual idea of a hard drive's contents, and a wiper that cleans over the data you thought you deleted (but didn't really, due to the way hard drives work.) It even works with solid-state drives. And it's portable: you can run SlimCleaner from a USB drive and take it from PC to PC without having to re-install it each time.




WINUTILITIES FREE EDITION
http://download.cnet.com/WinUtilities-Free-Edition/3000-18512_4-75021441.html
Millions have downloaded this software and for good reason: it packs in a lot of optimization for Windows in one package. It's got the usual cleanup tools including those for browsers, disk defragmenting, and much more, but all with one clear interface. Users can customize it to run just what tools they want. There's even a task scheduler to set it up to run as needed without user input. If you want to clean up even more, the Pro version will set you back $30 a year for a single computer license.




AUSLOGICS DISK DEFRAG FREE http://www.auslogics.com/en/software/disk-defrag/
Many would argue that today's hard drives don't need to be defragmented (they fragment when data is written all over the platter, making everyday data access a little slower than it needs to be). But why not do everything you can to go faster? Defragmenter tools come with Windows, but this standalone freebie is small, a breeze to use, consolidates free space, checks for errors, and best of all, it's ultra-fast. (Pro version: $30)




ERASER https://sourceforge.net/projects/eraser/
Eraser doesn't tune up Windows as much as it clears the way for your hard drive to work better. It does this by over-writing the "empty" areas of a drive you thought were deleted. Even if you empty the recycle bin, the data might still be recoverable, for example. Eraser makes sure it isn't, and that also helps with hard disk performance.




JETCLEAN AND JETBOOST http://www.bluesprig.com/index.html
JetClean would put itself up against CCleaner and SystemCare and others any day. It offers a complete performance enhancing clean and registry fixes all from one light piece of software. Couple it with JetBoost to get even better performance—JetBoost will shut down everything but your most essential apps, at least temporarily, something many gamers will appreciate.






SPECCY https://www.piriform.com/speccy
Speccy won't clean up a thing, but this handy utility from Piriform will give you plenty of one thing:  Information. Speccy looks at your PC's internal systems and provides a report on exactly what you're running—processor, drives, RAM, graphics, OS – all info you'll have on hand when needed. It's invaluable when making tech support calls. 




ADVANCED SYSTEMCARE 7 FREE http://www.iobit.com/en/advancedsystemcarefree.php
Not too many products try to take on the mash-up of system maintenance and malware/virus monitoring, but IObit takes on that task with SystemCare. Even this free version (Pro is $20 for 1 year for 3 PCs) offers basic protection, basic optimization, and automatic privacy cleaning whenever you log in. Check out PCMag's review of version 6. Mac users might want to check out IObit's MacBooster.




IOLO SYSTEM MECHANIC FREE http://www.iolo.com/landing/smfree/
Don't be thrown off by the price on the linked page: System Mechanic Free is still free, but it is a stripped down version of the more powerful $40 version. For what you get, however, Windows XP to Windows 8 users will be pleased: there's a registry tuner, startup optimizer, PC cleanup, shortcut repair tool, even a fix for bad Internet connections.



 WHAT'S YOUR FAVORITE FREE SYSTEM APP UTILITY? LEAVE A COMMENT OR SEND ME A EMAIL



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